Chindie

Ah man really? I'm downloading the bundle at the mo and will fire it up after that - it did patch when I first loading the game though, is that a fix for those issues or something else? Guess I'll find out if it **** up eh It's not a ubiquitous problem but a bit more widespread than they might like. Things like missing/not working Catwoman codes, confusion on skin codes (they only work in the challenge rooms and on second playthroughs), issues with dlc corrupting and saves going funny too, etc etc. Just hope you're unaffected, which most likely you will be.

Ill give you an hour before its in the disk tray :winkold: Nearly 9 hours before that happened . Installed, not yet played. Savouring it, will pick up freebies tomorrow at work to get me even more hyped before getting stuck in.

My copy arrived earlier. Theres a lot of issues with the Catwoman code and save/DLC corruption going about so I'm holding off diving straight in...

BBC reporting he's been wounded in both legs.

I wince a little when the term 'ethnic cleansing' comes out in reference to this.

Its amusing that this is sold as THE pinnacle of club football, and then 90% of it's overbloated run each year is absolutely terrible.

A copy has been traded in at work... ...I may borrow it. May also buy a new controller, just in case. A rent, I feel, is the way to go to see if I can stand it.

She's braindead, unfortunately. I'm glad someone linked 'Bystander Effect'. People in crowds tend not to react to things that do not involve them, we feel less responsibility to help someone when others might. It's not something inherently Chinese, it's something inherent to modern society. Sad, but true.

^Best option on a PS3 without spending absurd money on a Fanatec.

I typed that on my phone last night and even having slept on it, such a bad end to this has really left me with a bad taste in my mouth. (For some, SPOILERS may lie ahead) The story is bobbins for the entire game, the plot is so inconsequential that I could type out the entirety (in about 3 sentences even) and it'd ruin nothing for any player. And then it starts to actually start to go somewhere, you do a few missions in the second hub (again, spoiling nothing saying that), the plot actually kicks in a little, the distinct impression is that you're going to go take it, to the man(!). I don't think I'll be alone in thinking that this plot turn was the beginning of the final act of the game. And I guess it was, really. It's just the final act is rather short. 2 missions short. And your 'taking it to the man' has no consequence - you go take it to him, and it ends. Your taking it to him amounts to one of those sequences in Half-Life 2 where you're waiting for an elevator and enemies show up. It completely feels like they went '...that'll do' and popped in some FMV. Eugh. I really enjoyed this, for all it's faults, to the end. I could let go it being dumb (hell, I actively enjoyed it's simple gunplay), I could let go the frippery of hub worlds and dumb driving I didn't care much about. I couldn't care less there was no multi. I even didn't care that it recycled some environments by making you return to them a couple of times during it's campaign. But that ending... even though I wasn't invested in the story it feels like they lopped the back quarter of the game off.

I'm tempering my anticipation just a little, thanks to knowing it'll be in some way broken at launch and need patching. Still, next time I'm at work, my preorder fiver is going in.

Finished this evening. I'd braced myself for a disappointing finale, but christ id let themselves down with the ending. It comes pretty much without warning, the final mission plays out with the distinct feeling of the opening salvo of the final act of the game... Instead you do the mission and then... It ends. Solving nothing. The plot wasn't great but **** hell they could at least end it, instead you do this pretty dull mission having just been given a new toy which you're afraid to use because you think you'll need it later, and a short cinematic that, if your kind to it, sets up a sequel. It's let me down a little at the final hurdle, the end of the game feels like they gave up in honesty.

My tip would be keep your receipt. Just in case.

As said when we signed him - 1 good season in Scotland. I'm not shocked he hasn't set the world on fire.

Utterly, utterly superb. I think the only thing I can criticise this for currently are a over-abundance of Americana muscle cars, and a lack of new tracks. But otherwise it's so good.

Worth noting - Catwoman, who has a decent chunk of the single player campaign dedicated to her (and for collectibles fans/those wanting to face off the Riddler, she has trophys etc that only she can get), is effectively this games Online Pass - your copy will come with a code that accesses her. So if you buy second hand, chances are you're actually missing out on a chunk of the game's campaign. Serial numbers for console games soon enough.

...And you need to get them all if you want to take down the Riddler . I'm a bit said that the trivia challenges have been scaled back a fair old bit, replaced with lots more trophy collecting... ...but I ain't kidding myself, I will do it.

If it looks like one of these then yeah plugging it into the router is the fast/cheap option - your downloads shouldn't take too long either. If it looks like this you've got wireless capability and you may as well set it up even if you're never going to bother with Gold- it's useful without paying for the Gold subscription, access to demos and add ons (which Forza will have an absolute boatload of- a Season Pass is already available to get the first 6 months of car downloads at a discounted price). As for the Speed Wheel... I think letting it turn up and giving it a try is probably the best thing. In my brief crack with it, I don't like it though as said that may change with experience. If you don't get it on with it either I'm pretty sure Amazon have a decent returns policy. Forza is completely fine with a controller, I've always played the series with a pad and have never had an issue, and if anything the new one is better than ever, especially with the sheer level of customisation you can get with the assists it offers - you can set it up the point it damn near drives itself if you're really not a great racing game player. I'd imagine most people set the assists like I do, ABS and Traction on, racing line off, auomatic transmission etc. Ultimately standard pad is what most people will play this with and while people with proper wheel set ups (i.e. things with pedals and shifters that cost in the region of £300) will have very very very slight advantages in time (early impressions seem suggest less than a second - ultimately immaterial, especially if your console is never going online) the pad is brilliant. The Speed Wheel's big issue that I can see is that it has no feed back - you have to be intensely aware of your hand position and the controller has little to no way of letting you know. It has lights on the top that I think try to give some indication of where your hands are, and they also seem to provide feedback on braking and throttle intensity (I think). A proper, top of the line racing wheel has force feedback and will actively fight you which gives you an indication of whats going on with the car, how much you're gonna be able to get lock, even how much grip you're getting. The Speed Wheel can't do that. Playing Forza 3 I gave it a quick go on the simplist oval track I could find and I struggled to maintain an even line - exactly what a wheel is supposed to be able to do better than a pad. Could just be me, could just be my lack of familiarity with the bit of kit in my hands, but the impression I got was the thing only served to make me much, much worse at a game I was alright at. But your mileage with it may be better - let it turn up, give it a crack, see what you make of it. EDIT - I should add, in defence of the Wireless Speed Wheel, I've heard alot of stories that people who aren't big gamers really like it. My boss first used one at a conference a few weeks back and was telling us a couple of reps (not gamers) had used it and really gotten into it and gotten good with it, playing Forza. Another guy was deeply cynical of it (like I've been, and am), had a couple of goes and then they had to drag him off the thing.

Review embargo ended this afternoon. Guess what? It's **** great. YES.

A divisive game. I love it, but I came in expecting exactly what I got - astoundingly pretty with id trademark simple but meaty shooting. It feels like an old school game, it's a shooter where hip fire is totally fine to use for the entire game, it's a game where enemies will quite happily storm forward at your shotgun barrel. In that way it's exactly what you expect from an id shooter. The driving I don't care about, the hub world idea is pretty superfluous, the RPG-lite stuff is so streamlined it's kinda wrong to even consider it having an RPG lineage. But goddamn it's fun. I find myself wandering through a crazily detailed canyon toting a shotgun that's up there with gamings best imo, while maniacs wail at me and come for me with a **** fireaxe and as I aim the boomstick at them they're dodging and weaving and I take the shot and it clips his ducking shoulder and kicks his arm back and knocks him slightly off balance so he wheels just past me and I'm grinning like a mentalist because it's **** fun to turn around and nail the guy before his buddy cracks me with his own axe. And thats without mentioning my spider robot buddy who goes and **** up these guys pretty well on his own. Sure the story's shit and it's a big dumb shooter and if you look a bit closer a lot of the textures are bobbins but when it's moving it looks **** incredible and it's just fun. And a lot of other people think its crap.

What type of Xbox do you have? If it's the new slim model it has a built in wireless adapter, it's simply a case of going to the section in the menus, letting it search for your network and putting in your passcodes for your internet, and away you go. That'll give you the basic service on Live which doesn't cost anything and will let you input your bonus code (press the Guide button on your controller, hit left twice, hit 'Redeem Code' and input the 25 character code, it'll pop up what it entitles you to and then will download it when you confirm it). If you want to race people online you'll need a Gold subscription, £40 for a year, roughly, you can get deals sometimes on it and it also comes with bonuses like Gold member only offers and access to Facebook and twitter etc, and coming soon stuff like iPlayer. If you've got an older model (i.e. not the slim), to connect wirelessly to the net requires an adapter which is still ludicrously priced - circa £60 on the high street. Goes second hand in Gamestation for £35-40, silly price but it is what it is. That clips on the back of the console and connects via the USB, then you set it up just like the new models built in one. If you have the older model and need one of these, make sure you get the black one, it's a lot better than the first one they released. I've taken delivery of the new 'Wireless Speed Wheel' Microsoft have released today (thankfully at a bargain price ), not sure whether that's what you've bought Rob but er... well, I don't think I like it :oops:. I'm not sure whether it's not being used to it or what but a quick impression on Forza 3 and the Forza 4 demo has not left me impressed. The Dpad is hilariously bad, worse than the original controller one - I can press a direction fully and nothing happens. You really have to press it down seriously to get it to work. It's also missing the shoulder bumpers entirely making it slightly less useable, stuff like the F1 games where you're using a lot of buttons if you turn off some of the assists are not going to be entirely playable with it.

Nationalism is laughable in most areas, but in football it gets absolutely absurd. Germany being the prime example as Rev points out.

His name is Guede, not Gueve. He was initially sentenced to a far higher term but had it reduced on admitting to involvement in the murder and apologising. Importantly, the reduction largely came because he claimed to have not actually delivered the cut that ultimately killed her - on reflection that now begs the question if hes not lying, and this pair had no involvement, who did it. It's likely he is lying given that hes changed his story numerous times. He initially claimed not involvement at all, claiming to have been in the apartment on the basis of an agreed date with Kercher and was in the loo when a mysterious individual killed her. I also believe that Knox was not totally innocent in this tragedy, there is far too much that is questionable about it all (both of then lying for a start, Knox in particulars weird activities, etc). I feel for the Kerchers because they will never have the full story - todays events only proved incompetence on behalf if the Italian police. I sincerely hope talk of multimillion dollar interviews and movies proves not to come to pass, it sits very poorly.

An unsafe verdict overturned, so you could call that justice to an extent, but theres still rather a lot about this case that doesn't add up and the case has been far from answered imo.

Meireles will be off to Chelsea it seems.